Skip to main contentIn May 2003, developers obtained city approval to build a $100 million, 153-unit riverfront condo development and marina, Salpare Bay, on Hayden Island.
But seven years later, only an opportunistic osprey makes its nest amid the naked foundation and rusting rebar—all that was ever built on the Columbia Riverfront site.
On the water, however, Salpare Bay's 194-slip marina, complete with elegant stone-and-shingle harbor master's quarters, is bustling—although the city's top code-compliance officer acknowledges the marina has operated "illegally" for years because it lacks an approved parking lot and has broken its promise to pay for one.
Salpare Bay is hardly the only project submarined by the economic downturn. But the willingness of the city's Bureau of Development Services to allow the marina to operate—at the expense of a competitor who has complied with city code—illustrates the tension between encouraging development and enforcing the law.
"This whole process has us scratching our heads," says John Walker of Seattle-based Teutsch Partners, which owns four nearby, competing marinas.
The stakes are obvious. On a recent day, Salpare Bay's slips hosted scores of gleaming motor yachts and numerous sailboats with shiny teak and soaring masts. Well over half the spaces were full. Pride of place went to the 118-foot Westport-built Isabella megayacht, on offer from a "motivated seller" for $5.9 million.
Based on its posted prices, Salpare Bay could easily be taking in $50,000 or more in monthly moorage fees, Walker estimates.
That's not peanuts. But it's a whole lot less than Columbia Rim Corporation of Vancouver envisioned when it bought a 24-acre former sand quarry for development.
In an April 2005 letter to BDS, Columbia Rim requested temporary parking for about a year starting in April 2006. "We are requesting approval to operate a temporary parking lot for associated marina use," wrote Columbia Rim's Gary Franks. "In the unforeseen future, if construction of the residential use and associated surface parking do not occur in one or any of the phases, we commit to building out the required parking area to code."
The city approved the temporary use and the "unforeseen future" became the present. Yet Columbia Rim did not spend the money to pave, landscape and otherwise upgrade its parking lot. And city compliance officers did nothing.
City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who manages BDS, laid off more than half the bureau's staff in the past year because the development fees that fund the bureau have dried up. But Mike Liefeld, code-compliance director, says staffing shortages aren't a factor in this case.
Liefeld acknowledges Columbia Rim has not kept its promise. He says his agency tries to balance conflicting agendas: the desire to promote development and the responsibility to enforce the law.
"The city is supportive of seeing projects that are approved keep moving along," Liefeld explains. "[This project] is taking longer than anybody anticipated."
In response to complaints, BDS pushed Columbia Rim this spring to fulfill its pledge to make the parking legal. But the company ignored an April 1 deadline to apply for a conditional-use permit, and the bureau began levying a fine of $500 a month.
Columbia Rim perhaps has more pressing concerns: The company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday. Company officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Walker, whose firm owns the nearby marinas, says BDS's fines are too little and too late.
"The city can impose meaningful penalties through the code-enforcement hearings officer process, but they have chosen not to," he says.
Liefeld acknowledges a hearings officer could levy attention-getting fines of as much as $1,000 per day, but says "we're not at that point yet."
"I think it comes down to our philosophy on compliance," he explains. "This was an approved project. Portions have been approved and constructed. Our hope is to see projects through completion."
Walker says BDS is effectively punishing his firm by not enforcing its own rules.
"We feel for [Columbia Rim], but we're taxpayers and citizens trying to operate a business," he says. "Fining them $500 a month—they are laughing at that."
WWeek 2015